Although creating a fisheye lens effect in Photoshop might seem very easy, using the built-in filters such as Spherize, the advantage of the technique I am sharing is that the original image remains fully editable and distortion-free, and any future edits do not require repeating the distortion effects.

Getting Started

Requirements: You will need Photoshop CS3 or CS4.

The first step is to open an image in Photoshop. If the layer says “Background” (in italics), double-click the layer, and then click the OK button (the layer will now be named “Layer 0″, unless you gave it another name). This gives the layer an alpha channel (i.e., transparency), which is essential for this technique to work. You won’t see the transparency yet.

Now from the menu choose Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object. This is the magic step that makes this technique possible. Again, you won’t see any change in the picture; the only apparent change is a small badge added to the layer thumbnail in the Layers palette.

Next choose Edit > Free Transform. A big “X” will appear across your photo. Immediately click the Warp icon in the control bar:

You will now see several lines crossing your photo, dividing it into nine squares. You will also see various “handles” along the perimeter of the image. You can drag these to warp the image. What you want to do is grab the corner handles, and pull them in. Pull them in until the lines on either side of the handle form a single straight line, and so that the corner point is halfway between the end points:

(If you have trouble visualizing where the midpoint should go, you can make a layer above or below this layer, and draw a big X across it with the line tool. That will give you a guide.)

Do all four corners the same way. When you are done, your image will look like this:

(My background is black because I created a layer filled with black and placed it behind. If you haven’t done that, you will see the transparency checkerboard instead. You can fill the background with whatever you like—on a separate layer!—or leave it empty. It’s up to you.)

We’re making progress, but there is still a bit more to do to complete the effect and make it look realistic.

Now you need to select the circle shape. The easiest way to do this on the Mac is to hold down the Command key and click on the layer. (Control key on Windows.)

Then choose Filter > Distort > Spherize…. Enter whatever value you thinks look good. Values of 70 to 85 seem to work well. This adds a little ballooning to the image, as you would have with a fisheye lens.

You will now have an image that looks like this:

These kinds of lens tend to go dark on the edges, so we’ll add some dark edging next.

Again, select the circle shape. Hold the Command key on a Mac / Control key on Windows, and this time click the the black and white Smart Filters mask, which is right below the layer in the Layers palette.

This will give us the correct selection, since the Spherize filter has actually changed the visible image shape.

Now inverse the selection, with Select > Inverse.

Create a new layer directly above the lens layer (Layer > New > Layer…). Fill the selected area with black, using Edit > Fill, and choosing Black as the fill color.

Without losing the selection, choose Layer > Layer Mask > Hide Selection. It will appear that the new layer with the black has disappeared.

The new layer has two thumbnails now; the layer contents, on the left; and the mask, on the right. Click the left thumbnail to highlight it.

Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter a large number, like maybe 60. It will depend on your image size, which number will work the best. You should see the edges turning dark. However, at very high numbers, the effect will also become diluted. If you want to emphasize the effect, duplicate the layer. Don’t go too crazy with the darkening, though. Keep it subtle.

You should now have an image like this:

Now we are basically done.

But here is the cool part: If you double-click the thumbnail in the lens layer (Layer 0), you can edit the base image. You will see that the original image is still square. You can add layers, type, or anything you want. And when you close the original image window, and return to the lens effect window, anything you added will appear with the fisheye lens effect!

Here is an example, showing type that was added after all the steps were finished. You can see that Photoshop automatically warps the type to have the fisheye look:

If you want, you could even save this image as a template. Any new images you dragged into the original smart object would be automatically warped and shaded for you, without needing to repeat any of these steps.

The project is now complete. Enjoy!

The original photo was shot in 2007, I believe. Even then, not all of the then-current board members were available at the time of the photo shoot. I arranged for one of my coworkers, Kenton Rogers, to take one photo without the missing members, who were added later when they were able to come and sit for a photo.

The original photo:

Kenton later added the missing members:

Unfortunately, that edited version was never published, because we had to postpone publishing the magazine into which it would have been inserted.

This year we started working on the magazine again. However, the members of the board had changed over the years. We could not get everyone together for another photo shoot, so we had to update the photo that we already had. It was necessary to remove four members, and add one. But since the photo had not been taken with that end in mind, this step was a little more difficult.

Besides the four deletions and one insertion, it was necessary to move other members to fill the gaps, add missing body parts to the people thus moved, and fill in backgrounds where they had been cut out. (Computer novices may imagine that if you move a person in Photoshop, their hand that was hidden behind a piece of furniture will magically appear, and you will see what was behind them. But, of course, it doesn’t work that way. All those things have to be drawn, cloned, or otherwise added.)

The updated version for 2009:

It’s not a perfect arrangement, aesthetically. But considering what we had to work with, I think it turned out pretty well!

You can download the wallpaper by clicking here:

Notes on usage:

• Be sure to download the full-size wallpaper, not the preview image above. The size is 1024×768.
• Set the wallpaper as your desktop wallpaper / background image.
• However, DO NOT STRETCH OR SHRINK THE IMAGE. In your desktop wallpaper settings, be sure any option to scale/resize/stretch the desktop image is OFF. It is okay if the image floats in the middle of your screen. If you have empty space around the image, it is advised that you change the color of the screen to black or a neutral gray.

What you are looking for:

• On the right are color swatches. The top ones are shades of pure red, green, and blue (the primary colors of RGB monitors), as well as neutral gray. The bottom ones are yellow, cyan, and magenta, which are the secondary hues made from various 100% combinations of the RGB primaries. Make sure the colors look right, and grays have no color cast.
• The main part of the wallpaper is six large patches filled with various patterns. These help you catch moire patterns, crooked scan-lines, scaling issues (if you are not using your screen’s native resolution, for example), and so forth.

Descriptions of pattern tiles, left to right, top to bottom:

• Fine dots. Should appear an even gray. If you see something like the image below, instead, your display has moire or scan-line problems. Check if your monitor has a menu for geometry settings, and if you can fix the problem there.

• Field of plus signs. Lines should be broken vertically and horizontally. Gap size is one pixel. If you don’t see the gap, either there is image bleeding, or there is a scaling issue (non-square pixels). Additionally, the grid cells should appear perfectly square, not rectangular.
• Vertical lines. Should appear an even gray from a distance. If you are short-sighted, try removing your glasses and viewing your display from a few feet away; the top-right, top-left, and lower-center tile should all appear the same shade of gray. If you see bands, like in the image below, your display has geometry problems.

• Field of light dots. Similar to fine dots, above.
• Horizontal lines. Works the same as vertical lines, above.
• Zig zag lines. Should appear as a horizontal herringbone pattern. (To be honest, I couldn’t think of any more patterns, so I just put that one in there for kicks.)